


exeunt

by navience



Category: The Poppy War - R. F. Kuang
Genre: ? I guess, Angst, Character Study, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rinezha from Venka's pov, Set around the beginning of tdr to post-tbg??, Sring Venka-Centric, Unrequited Love, it's all misery here folks, the burning god spoilers, the dragon republic spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28025817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navience/pseuds/navience
Summary: venka leaves three times.
Relationships: Chen Kitay & Sring Venka, Fang Runin/Sring Venka, Fang Runin/Yin Nezha
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	exeunt

**Author's Note:**

> don't read this if you're looking for happy rinezha this is just me being sad for venka. forgive the fact that it's way more prosy (?) and generally different from my usual writing style i got an Idea at midnight and wrote this in like 45 minutes lol so i'm sorry if it's genuinely terrible bc my brain is fried. have a lovely day <3

it hurts. it really, really hurts.

venka watches nezha grab rin’s hand, watches rin settle in a little closer to his side. she watches as rin tries and fails to kill him, over and over again. she watches as he tears himself apart, nezha’s pain reflected on her face. rin is stabbed and nezha feels the knife; nezha is burned and impervious rin is singed.

and venka _hurts._

sometimes she thinks she’s too jaded to feel so cut up about a girl, and sometimes she curls into a ball and screams. hasn’t she hurt enough?

she knows she can’t love rin anyway. she knows, that even if rin didn’t love nezha like the sun loves the moon, that even if rin didn’t light up for nezha and nezha alone, that she could never really express her affection. she’s all locked up inside; part of her is still in golyn niis. it is unfair to her and to rin for her to love when she cannot love with all her being.

sometimes she’s happy for her. rin’s love is so big, so beautiful, like fireworks over the water. venka’s been loved by nezha her whole life, if not precisely the way he loves rin. she can afford them a little happiness and pray she’ll find happiness of her own someday. she’s hurt enough. she won’t hurt herself more over a girl.

she’s sick with it, moon-eyed and drunk over rin the night on the water tower. her body feels loose, free, lighter than it has in years. she lets her mind fuzz over the glass edges and leans on kitay, giggling. she watches rin against the sky and pretends nezha isn’t next to her, loving her just the same. 

“kitay,” she says as he hands her a cup of water. “i love her.”

“i do too,” he says, and she’s sober enough to know it’s an out. she can keep it down, pretend it’ll go away if she buries her head in the sand. she glares at him, sloshes the liquid in the glass. “not like you, though.”

venka bursts into tears. like no other night in her life, she cries and she lets kitay hold her. she falls asleep with her face dry and wakes up alone. she wakes up and she knows what she has to do.

she leaves for rin.

she doesn’t understand nezha. she’s never understood nezha. she knows that now, watches the rain pour and rin’s wrist creep over with gangrene. she watches rin’s back. 

she presses her lips tight and looks toward the skyline. she’ll find answers there, she’s sure.

what’s one more war in a lifetime of conflict? she realizes she’s spent twenty-eight percent of her life at war. venka sets her jaw and prays it will end.

she believes rin can do anything. she believes rin can set the world on fire and make it anew. she believes in rin like people who aren’t _venka_ believe in god. 

she knows she can never pray to her, but she finds herself thinking about her when they’re apart and times are hard. times are always hard, these days.

they’re gods. they mold the world. their words are law. 

why doesn’t venka feel any safer?

rin gets notes. fire flames in her eyes as she reads them, and venka knows, then, that nezha still lives. he is near and far, next to her, in rin’s hollow chest and light-years away, in a world that hates him and them more.

rin could have killed him a thousand times by now. 

nezha still lives.

the fire is burning in rin all the time now, her pupils once deep brown, close to black, then the orange-red of the poppy flower. these days, the color is more akin to blood.

her words slip. an old expression, from an old friend.

rin slips.

venka left for her once. what’s one more egress?

it’s like she almost has wings herself, rin’s hands pressed symmetrically on her shoulders. she flaps them once, twice. she leaves her body, and she can’t say she’s not relieved. 

she watches the skyline, dotted with dirigibles. she waits for rin, but—

rin stays. nezha sobs, cradles her body. venka knows what he’s thinking without any ghostly powers. what are best friends for?

venka strokes a hand over his hair— a faint breeze, caused by landing dirigibles. rin’s spirit is so much more corporeal, more lively than she was even in death. she clings to nezha, pokes him in the back. i’m right here. kitay stands beside her, haunting nezha, rin’s partner in crime evermore. venka smiles to herself.

she leaves a third time, wonders if she’ll be reborn with them again. if the whole horrible sequence will play on repeat in every life they have. if they are tragic by nature.

she hopes they aren’t, hopes she isn’t.

venka leaves in the hope the next life holds something better for her than a half-life haunting rin's ghost, than her short life here.

but even in another life, she knows.

rin is nezha’s; nezha is rin’s. whether they destroy or build up, they belong to each other by nature.  
  



End file.
